Editorial

Whether one loves or despises any singular choice in President Trump’s cabinet, I have come to realize that some of us had a glimmer of hope in the possibility Rex Tillerson would have a chance to become US’ most successful secretary of state in three decades. A glimmer cut short, however, in the reality of Tillerson being sandwiched between a narcissist clown as a boss and a bipartite Congress obsessed with empire as its mission; coupled, of course, with a neocon hawkish ideology in both State Department and Pentagon – ideology that has operated on autopilot for over two decades no matter the circumstances or which party occupied the White House.

As of July 2017, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli racism and apartheid is 12 years old. This means that over the last dozen years, a worldwide grassroots movement has grown up - a movement of civil society - that has organized active opposition to Zionist racism and Israeli oppression. While the vast majority of governments have either ignored or assisted Israel’s violations of international law and the basic principles of human rights, millions of “civilians” have refused to follow their leaders on this issue.

After a two-month hiatus – a self-imposed exile in an exclusive political exchange with some of my closest transoceanic peers – I feel invigorated to resume the quest which I had taken up in 2003 with my Behind the Mirror columns: a then rebuke to a reckless, and brainless, foreign policy adopted by George W. Bush under Cheney’s tutelage.

In case you haven’t noticed, the United States is a country deeply divided on a large number of basic issues: racial issues, gender issues, issues of sexual preference, the role of government in society, the role of religious views in shaping laws, and so on. Influential Institutions, such as media outlets, are being labeled as “left” or “right” depending on how they report or relate on these issues.

There is a lot of violence in the United States, and if you look at the news it appears that things are getting worse. The nation is armed to the teeth, which means that any out-of-control angry person can vent in lethal fashion. Or, maybe they can choose to vent in the European style by using their car as a battering ram.